This invention relates to an apparatus for producing an ultrahigh pressure water jet capable of projecting a jet of ultrahigh pressure water through a nozzle gun against a given object for the purpose of cleaning the surface of the object, peeling a coating off the surface, or removing rust from the surface.
The conventional ultrahigh pressure water apparatus has been designed so that a plurality of jets of water at ultrahigh pressure of 2,000 kg/cm.sup.2, may be projected through a nozzle gun thereof and, by suitable movement of the nozzle gun enables the jets to dash against a given object uniformly throughout the entire surface thereof. For the entire surface of the object to be uniformly cleaned or stripped of the coating, therefore, the nozzle gun has been required to be moved delicately. Since the delicacy with which the movement of the nozzle gun is controlled has its own limit, it has been inevitable that the individual jets of water projected through the nozzle gun should be given a large diameter. Consequently, the volume of water discharged through each nozzle, a pump used for generating the ultrahigh pressure water, and a motor or generator engine used for driving the pump have invariably been proportionately large, with the inevitable result that the apparatus as a whole has become quite expensive. Further owing to the large diameter of the projected water jets, the total volume of water discharged through the nozzle gun per unit time has been large and the nozzle gun has been so large and heavy as to render its manual operation difficult and dangerous. Thus, the nozzle gun has been adapted to be operated as mounted on a stationary support. As a natural consequence, the operation of the nozzle gun for the cleaning or stripping of the surface of the object has suffered from inferior efficiency. With the conventional ultrahigh pressure water apparatus, therefore, it has been difficult to perform works which demand meticulous care such as, for example, the cleaning of deep corners of a tank interior.